One of our sons asked me recently how we can know for sure whether our love for someone is real. I thought about it for a while. I heard a great quote about love in a movie the name of which I don’t recall: “Love is not what you feel inside. Love is the way you treat the person you say you love.” This is what it means to me:

TO LOVE = To Give Your (TIME + ATTENTION + ENERGY)

This formula could be applied in a professional setting, adding “Give Your EXPERTISE” to the mix.

If you say that you don’t love your work, and yet you give it your time, attention, energy, and expertise, you are acting as if you love your work. If you say that you do love your work, but don’t give it your time, attention, energy, and expertise, your feelings are not meaningful outside of your mind/heart.Notice the disparity between your thoughts and actions. “Your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.” The disparity between your thoughts and actions is tough on you. Where do you want to give your time, attention, energy and expertise?

Think about about activities and people to whom you already give your time, attention, and energy. That’s where you love. Consider who in your circle gives you his or her time, attention, and energy. That’s where you are being loved.

It is my birthday today (yes, Friday, the 13th ), and my wish is to do more of what I love. I made time for you, and would love to give you my attention, energy and expertise, as a gift. Because giving you a gift of my time, attention, energy, and expertise is also a gift to myself.

HERE’s HOW IT WORKS:

1. Think whether you’d like a 1-hour coaching session, or a 30-minute intuitive reading, then click here2. Go to “WEEK 9″, which is the last week of February.3. Pick an open appointment time 2/23 – 2/27 that works for you4. Select a 1-hr Coaching Session, or a 30-min intuition Strategy Session.5. Click on “Pay Later” (I would love to you to “pay” in referrals, if you can), and you will receive a confirmation of our session shortly. We’ll play until my schedule for that week fills up.

Among all the things that I can guarantee to my clients, finding love isn’t one of them.

I help clients make decisions, clarify what they want, find common ground with their current partners, decide how they want to come across, but when it comes to finding love, I balk. Of course, finding love may be a magnificent side-effect of executive coaching, but never a guarantee.

I’m an analytical thinker: I want a goal and a plan, with supporting scientific evidence. When it comes to love, things don’t seem to work that way. Trying to understand love through science is like hoping to grasp the mind through studying the brain, or expecting to experience happiness through studying positive psychology.

What science can do when it comes to love is help us navigate relationships more peacefully. So, here are 7 helpful science-based ideas that we can use to answer our questions about love:

1. Can you trust the feelings of “I just know” and “It just feels so right!”?

As much as it pains me to say so, “I justknow” is not an indicator of what you actually know, or an accurate reflection of how things actually are. According to a neuroscientist Dr. Robert Burton, the feeling of knowing is an uncontrollable feeling that can flush over us without any corresponding facts or supporting evidence for actually knowing anything. If you have a “Know it all” person in your life (or if you are a “know it all” person yourself), Burton’s book “On Being Certain” is required reading.

4. Is it possible to take an objective look at our relationships, without appealing to an outsider’s opinion, in order to gain clarity and perspective?

Goethe famously said: “We see only what we know.” A mind has numerous limitations to assessing itself, ranging from genetic predispositions to cultural biases, according to Robert Burton. Timothy Wilson in his book“Strangers to Ourselves” suggests that we need to combine introspection with observing the way others react to us. Since we can’t fully understand ourselves “from the inside of our heads”, it makes sense to ask for input from an outside. Pick your adviser wisely, though.

In my [completely unscientific] opinion, love grows as we become each other’s story keepers. And here’s a great, fun article aboutspecific questions that you can ask to facilitate story-telling and story-keeping, and to ultimately fall in love.

Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union Address made me think of this: what are our rituals for evaluating our successes on regular basis, and setting inspiring agendas for the year?

Think of yourself as the commander-in-chief of your life. Instead of the dreaded New Year resolution, write your own annual State of the Union Address, to reflect on the things you’ve done right, and to set inspiring intentions for the following year.

Even in your toughest years, you have a lot to celebrate: you’ve survived and you’ve grown. Acknowledging the good things that you’ve done in the past year makes your mind focus on the fact that you’re a competent and resourceful person. Hence, you’re more likely to approach a new challenge from the position of competence and resourcefulness rather than weakness.

Setting intentions for the coming year is much like typing your destination into a GPS: you may not know the specific road you will take, but you know where you want to end up. If you don’t have an intention or a destination in mind, than any place is as good as any other place. If you want to end up in a better place, set an intention, pick a destination, and you can always change course later, if necessary.

Over the past year, I started teaching hands-on intuition development workshops for analytical people, combining what I learned from neuroscience and business texts with practical tools developed by my intuition mentors. (I just got a bouquet of flowers from one of my amazing students, which made my day. It reminded me that I’m on the right track. If you see someone who’s on the right track, do send them a bouquet of flowers, or a Starbucks gift card, or just a card – it makes such a difference!). My intention for the near future is to fill the Intuition & Decision-Making Retreat in May 1-3, 2015 with smart, curious, analytical thinkers who want to spend a restful weekend at Garrison Institute, learning to understand and use their intuition. Please, help me make this magic happen by joining the retreat, and sharing info with your friends! Many thanks.

Here are some of the things you may want to include in your personal annual State of the Union Address:

1. Simplifying. Multitasking and constant distractions are making us less efficient, making our minds frequently feel overloaded. Did you let go of something last year that made your life easier? What can you simplify or let go of in the coming year?

2. Asking. What did you ask for in 2014, and you got? What resources would you like to ask for in the coming year? (Here’s my ask: please share the Intuition & Decision-Making Retreat link with your tribe! http://IntuitionLeap.com/retreat )

3. Giving. What did you give last year that made you feel richer? Did you support the causes that you believe in? Did you give what you needed most (for example, gave to charity even when you were strapped for cash, gave your energy and attention to someone even when you felt lonely and depressed, and needed energy and attention yourself)? What would you like to get in 2015 that you can also give? Expertise? Energy? Time?

4. Sleeping. Your brain does amazing things while you’re sleeping. Can you think of a time when you let yourself rest and sleep in, even when you had a ton of things that needed to get done? Did it work out well? How can you build in more sleep into your 2015 routines?

5. Learning. Have you learned a new skill, read a new book, figure out how to do a new project in 2014? What would you like to learn in 2015? Surprise yourself.

6. Loving. Did you connect with someone new in 2014? Did you deepen your personal connection with someone? Did you fall [deeper] in love with someone or something? How can you make more room, time and energy for love in 2015?

7. Playing. Can you think of a time when you just laughed and had fun in 2014? Did you make time to rest and play? Can you set an intention to allow time to play in 2015? Be as specific as you can in your SOTU.

8. Creating. Did you create something interesting in 2014? It could be something as simple as a new system to help things run smoother at home, to building/painting/cooking something, or implementing a major change at work. What would you like to create in 2015?

Here is an idea: make a tradition out of writing and delivering your personal State of the Union Address. Get together with a few people you care about, and have a SOTU party in late January or early February, where each of you can share your SOTU address. You could also do it in your family, in your class, your mastermind group, or a book club.

I’d love to hear how your Personal SOTU Address goes! Would you please send me a picture or a video from your Personal SOTU Address 2015 (even if it’s the “party of 1″ for you), listing the best thing that came out of this project? Send your picture/video by March 1st to Alina@IntuitionLeap.com , and I’ll add your name to a raffle for 1-hour executive coaching session and 30-min intuitive reading session (let’s make them transferable, in case you win one and want to give it to someone you love).

I’d like to share with you some of my favorite resources from 2014, as well as my work that you said made a difference for you. Let’s keep sharing our best resources! Thank you, and have a peaceful, insightful, and healthy 2015! (Image: my best 2014 accomplishment in the kitchen is this Napoleon, made from scratch). My […]

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